Topic: Lost Highway 2LP (Bootleg?)

upon visiting amoeba records yesterday, i found a copy of the lost highway soundtrack on 2LP. i picked it up to investigate further and they wanted $28 for it. usually, it’s about 10X that. so i was intrigued. i asked why they were selling it so cheap and the gentleman said many people had questioned him about it and he didn’t know. but that four other copies were recently sold. i think it’s a bootleg, here’s why:

they had the chicago tapes and unreleased demos vinyl for sale there as well. obvious bootleg

the record didn’t seem to weigh enough (probably not 180g)

no heavy outer plastic jacket

gatefold sleeve TOO perfect. the originals almost ALL show signs of edge wear. never seen a copy this pristine

wasn’t sealed by manufacturer. just stuck in generic plastic oversized sleeve and folded/taped to fit record

over the counter purchase by amoeba – no provenance. they didn’t order from a distributor, just a person who sold them a few at a time, for whatever non disclosed price

did a bit of online research and can find nothing relating to a reissue from simplyvinyl’s wordpress page. last post from 2011

either way, if you want this on vinyl for a cheap price, go for it. i just think it’s fake.

according to discogs.com, there’s a US and a EU pressing of this record: http://www.discogs.com/master/view/19820i never knew that. could that be a mistake? it looks like they listed the same pressing twice.discogs.com doesn’t mention anoter LP version of the soundtrack.

i had no idea there were two pressings. i’m inclined to think that’s kind of bullshit. i wasn’t able to open the record to view the matrix codes. i had decided it was a bootleg, so i don’t want to spend nearly $30 for that information, although helpful.

every copy i’ve tracked on eBay comes from EU. never seen one in the US, even for sale.

Yes, I also believe that’s probably a mistake on discogs.com. They probably added the same release twice.(It’s hard to see where the LP comes from. I can’t find “made in Europe” mentioned anywhere, on first sight. So one could easily assume it’s a US release.)

If you’re after the sound on vinyl, why would you settle for a bootleg, where you have no idea where this “sound” comes from?

Most of these bootlegs are just an attempt to cash in on the fact that the original record is very rare.Bootleggers typically don’t really care that much about sound quality. My guess is that they just took the cd, and used that to make the vinyls. (If you use a cd to make a record, you completely lose all the advantages of “sound on vinyl”.)

Another option is that they transferred the audio from one of the original records. (And then most likely processed the audio, to clean it up a bit.) This also isn’t very interesting, if you want audio quallity.

It’s always possible that the original vinyl was sourced from a cd, although I find that unlikely. In that case it doesn’t make much of a difference, but the point still stands: you’re not getting the “sound on vinyl”, as it’s cd sourced.

Or maybe the bootleggers got their hands on the original audio, mastered for vinyl, or on the original pressing plates. Once again, unlikely. Who would give it to them?

i totally agree with everything you’re saying. i meant “sound on vinyl” as the pops and whisps and crackles. THAT sound, not necessarily a superior sound.i would say, oh, don’t support the bootleggers!, but i just don’t care anymore about that. it’s up to the consumer. personally, i just walked away. no need for that vinyl in my collection.although, i might pick up a copy just to document on this site. hmmm….